35/70 tape and 40/80 tape

[arcserve2k]

I was just wondering what would happen if I put a 40/80 tape in a 35/70 DLT drive and vise versa, 35/70 in a 40/80 can someone please explain.

thanks

 

[DeBolle]

Both types of drives (you're talking about DLT7000 and DLT8000 actually) use the same type of cartridge, a DLT Type IV.
A new, unused tape can be used on both drives without problems. However, a tape used/written to in a DLT7000 will be recognized in a DLT8000 as such, and cannot be written to without 'formatting' it as a DLT8000 tape. A DLT8000 can read a DLT7000 tape though.
A tape used/written to in a DLT8000 will not be recognized in a DLT7000 and will be 'seen' as a new, unused tape.
When this tape is written to, a DLT8000 will recognize it as a DLT7000 tape and can only be forced to write to it in DLT8000 format.